What art offers is space - a certain breathing room for the spirit.

My only duty was to describe reality as it had come to me-to give the mundane its beautiful due.

There is always a chance of failure, of producing something totally unnecessary. But I guess that chance of failure is what makes tightrope walking, race-car driving.

Rain is grace; rain is the sky descending to the earth; without rain, there would be no life.

It's not up to us what we learn, but merely whether we learn through joy or through pain.

To be a human being is to be in a state of tension between your appetites and your dreams, and the social realities around you and your obligations to your fellow man.

There is no doubt that I have lots of words inside me; but at moments, like rush-hour traffic at the mouth of a tunnel, they jam.